The Power Went Out and So Did Every Rule Between Us

The lights died at 8:43 p.m.

One second the hallway was lit, the next everything plunged into thick, humid darkness. Generators in the better buildings kicked in. Ours did not. The entire block had gone under.

I was still in the stairwell when I heard someone curse above me. A familiar voice. Of course it was him.

Reyan. Third floor. The man I had disliked on sight three years ago and never bothered to revise the opinion. Loud. Arrogant. Always taking up more space than necessary. We had argued over parking, over noise, over the broken lift, over everything. The last time we spoke it had ended with me calling him a selfish bastard and him telling me to go to hell.

Now we were trapped in a pitch-black stairwell together.

“You,” he said flatly when I reached the landing.

“Unfortunately.”

We stood there in the dark, listening to distant voices and the occasional shout from other floors. The air was already growing warmer without the air-conditioning. My phone battery was at 11 percent. His, from the way he swore under his breath, was worse.

“My apartment is closer,” he said after a minute. “I have candles. And whiskey. Unless you’d rather sit out here and hate me in the dark.”

I should have gone back to my own place. Instead I followed him.

His apartment was exactly as I expected—messy in a controlled way, books stacked on the floor, a single couch that looked expensive and uncomfortable. He lit three thick candles and poured two generous measures of whiskey without asking. We sat on opposite ends of the couch, the silence thick with old resentment.

The whiskey loosened something. Or maybe it was the heat. Or the way the candlelight threw sharp shadows across his face and made him look less like the man I hated and more like a stranger I might have wanted in another life.

“You’ve always looked at me like you want to hit me,” he said eventually.

“I do.”

He huffed a short laugh. “The feeling’s mutual.”

Another silence. Then he set his glass down and leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

“You know what the worst part is?” he said. “I’ve thought about fucking you almost as many times as I’ve thought about fighting you.”

The words landed like a match in dry grass. I should have stood up and left. I stayed exactly where I was.

“Prove it,” I heard myself say.

He moved faster than I expected. One second he was on his end of the couch, the next he was in front of me, hand in my hair, mouth crashing down on mine. There was nothing gentle about it. It was anger and heat and three years of unresolved tension poured into one brutal kiss. I bit his lower lip hard enough to taste blood. He growled and kissed me harder.

We didn’t make it to the bedroom.

He dragged me onto the floor between the couch and the coffee table. My shirt came off in one rough pull. His followed. When his mouth closed over my breast he used his teeth. I arched up with a sharp sound that was half protest, half demand. His hand shoved into my shorts and found me already wet. He laughed against my skin—a dark, satisfied sound.

“Knew it,” he muttered. “You’ve been thinking about it too.”

I didn’t deny it. I just reached down and yanked at his belt. He helped me shove his jeans down far enough. Then he flipped me onto my stomach, pulled my hips up, and pushed into me in one hard thrust.

The stretch burned. I was tight and he was thick and he didn’t give me time to adjust. He started fucking me immediately—deep, punishing strokes that forced the air out of my lungs. One hand stayed on my hip, the other pressed between my shoulder blades, holding me down. Every thrust felt like a continuation of every argument we had ever had.

I came first, sudden and almost angry, clenching around him. He cursed and kept going, chasing his own release. When he finished he buried himself deep and held there, pulsing inside me with a low groan.

We stayed like that for a moment, both breathing hard. Then he pulled out. I felt the warm slide of him leaving me. Before I could move he turned me over, looked down at the mess between my legs, and something darker settled in his expression.

“We’re not done.”

The second time was on the couch. He sat and pulled me into his lap so I was facing him. I sank down onto his cock with a long, shaky exhale. This round I set the pace—harder, almost punishing. His hands gripped my hips hard enough to bruise. I braced my hands on his shoulders and rode him until my thighs burned. When I came again he held me down and thrust up into me through it, finishing a second time with his face pressed to my throat.

Afterward we slumped against each other, sweat-slick and silent. The candles had burned lower. The apartment was still dark.

“I still don’t like you,” I said eventually, voice rough.

He huffed a tired laugh against my shoulder. “Same.”

But when I shifted as if to get up, his arm tightened around my waist.

“Stay,” he said. Not a request. Not quite a command. Something in between.

I stayed.

The third time happened near dawn. The power was still out. We woke tangled on the couch, the air thick and warm. He was already hard against my thigh. I reached down and wrapped my hand around him. He made a low sound and pushed into my fist. Then he rolled me under him and entered me again—slower this time, deeper, the earlier anger burned away into something rawer.

We watched each other the entire time. When I came I didn’t look away. Neither did he. He followed a few strokes later, forehead against mine, breath shared.

When the power finally returned at 6:17 a.m., the sudden flood of light felt almost violent. We were still naked on the couch, sticky and sore and marked. Reyan sat up first, running a hand through his hair. For a moment neither of us spoke.

Then he looked at me, expression unreadable.

“This doesn’t make us friends.”

“God, no.”

A beat. Then the corner of his mouth lifted.

“But if the power goes out again…”

I stood, found my shirt, and pulled it on. At the door I paused and looked back.

“Don’t knock,” I said. “Just come over.”

His eyes darkened. He nodded once.

I left without another word. My own apartment felt too quiet after the raw intensity of the last few hours. I could still feel him between my legs, still taste him on my tongue.

We still didn’t like each other.

But the rules had changed. And neither of us seemed interested in putting them back.